Hoops

1 or 2 imports.

i thought it was in reference to him being white?

I assume the "vanilla" is referring to him being a plain and ordinary player. Similar to the description of "vanilla sex" middle aged men have.

My approach would be to make a list of the available Aussie free agents at each position we need to upgrade our starter, in 36ers case just about everything except for pf, and rank them, go after the top player on the list and work your way down the list as required, obviously the price tag and points will drop a bit as you go down, after you get past your say 4th or 5th option, you would have to look at a import, or gamble on giving a young guy more repsonsibility.

eg for starting pg our list may look like

1 Mills (Dreaming i know)
2 Gibson
3 Markovich
4/5 retain Bruce/Carter combo
4/5 IMPORT

Say we missed out on our top 3 then we would have to consider if we need the import else where and therefore go the Bruce/Carter combo or if we go for a import at starting PG, then id rank the available imports with nbl experience ie Ervin, Williams and Ubaka, and if we cant get one of them id go for a fresh face.

Say we got lucky and got our first 3 choices of Aussies in each position and hypothetically (without knowing who is available) recruited, Gibson, Magden, Weigh, Schenshcer, id be happy to go with no imports and fill out the bench with our current players ie something like Carter, Herbert, Hill, Creek, Johnson. I know its highly unlikely we would recruit anything close to those 4 aussies but thats what id be aiming for and replace the ones we miss out on with imports. If we miss out on all of them we would need 2 good imports, if we get say 2 of them we possibly could go with 1 import, it all depends on our aussies and salary and points caps.

"The young kids don't come to see Australians play, they come to see the Willie Farley's, Juliuis Hodge's, and Corey Homicide's play and entertain the crowd."

This is just reciting the same old tired tripe.

Yes, imports often have a different attitude, a certain flair to their game, and this can really excite a crowd and entertain people. But to say that's all "the young kids come for" is just ignorant. You get a close game late in the 4th quarter with two good teams and it doesn't matter where the players come from.

Sorry, I'm going to suggest the 1 import slot and one quality local player. You'd be better off trying to lure Brad Newley back with that kind of money and get someone who's a lccal boy and who's seasoned.

And anyone who says he won't come back because there's better money over in Europe, has just answered why most of the good imports aren't here already.

Balls may be naturalized, but he's still costing the team that marquee money. So you're either going to tell him to cough up some cash to get some "quality" import players or the SOS will have to conjour up magical funding for 2 imports; and go out of the salary cap.

Only thing that's needed for us is a 2nd scoring option that's reliable. If you can get that locally, then don't look elsewhere for it.

Sorry, I'm going to suggest the 1 import slot and one quality local player. You'd be better off trying to lure Brad Newley back with that kind of money and get someone who's a lccal boy and who's seasoned.

And anyone who says he won't come back because there's better money over in Europe, has just answered why most of the good imports aren't here already.

Balls may be naturalized, but he's still costing the team that marquee money. So you're either going to tell him to cough up some cash to get some "quality" import players or the SOS will have to conjour up magical funding for 2 imports; and go out of the salary cap.

Only thing that's needed for us is a 2nd scoring option that's reliable. If you can get that locally, then don't look elsewhere for it.

I think the first point of cash throwing should be at Schencher, bring him back to his home town and let him do what he does best. then yes i completely agree that we should put decent money up for a quality single import. that way johnson gets some experience against a proven centre and i think will benefit alot more from it, as currently he does some stupid jump shots that look hideous at the best of times. feel free to criticise that theory.

With what the 36ers have recruited in 2010-2011, then spending the import cash on a very good Australian player would make sense.

Yes, one import is good.
Hopefully the $US-$AUD stays the same for next season, because it is very appealing for imports.

Essentially, $350k AUD is $350k USD.
That kind of money is very close to the NBA minimum for a 1st year player (473k USD).

The concept of an import is to add an extra dimension to the team that isn't there.

Unless there is a gap, no need to add.